What's on your workbench today?

I build using very thin walls down to 1.5mm with internal reinforcing, and advise to sand the inside walls smooth as well, so as to provide maximum surface area contact when you glue the internal support walls.

My advice is to acquire or build a drum sander. I built one years ago and it makes life a lot easier when reducing timber down to these thicknesses. A big advantage of the thickness sander also is you can prepare several external sections together with identical thicknesses, eliminating sanded sections where two pieces join. Also you need to think about a way to bend the sections with steam. Bending the wood to shape dry will probably work to some extent, but the heat process of the shaping with steam is usually permanent and holds it's shape, where forced shaping dry will probably change with age and temperature/humidity etc.

DC

DC

 

Last post about this, I promise!

Painted the inside black and added a small, pull out parts drawer. Tight fit but it works.

 

Dye & sealer goin on the PR combo cab

 

Here are a couple one-piece poplar jazzmaster builds I've been working on. Both started out from the same (very large!) 8/4 board.

At left is a 'jazzcaster' I built a while back but have now refinished twice.

At right will be a P90 build. This one is roasted poplar - as an experiment I put the whole billet in my oven this summer to see how it would look. Somewhat darker but retained some greenish tones, for the record.



Ideally I wanted to highlight the one-piece boards with a translucent finish, but of course poplar tends to stain & dye splotchy. I've been using some water based stain on other woodworking lately, and find it's pretty good on stubborn woods! The regular poplar got a cherry finish, the roasted one a whitewash:



The cherry's okay, though tbh I'm currently debating a fourth refinish, but I quite like the whitewash. Here it is with a first coat of poly.


I was making a nice roasted maple neck to go with it but alas my router betrayed me on the very last inch I was trimming.

 

Now give it a little burst

 

a batch more Tiger buffers for OBELs.

 

I am actually considering a little subtle tobacco shading around the margins....

 

White Gold! ;-)



Cheers Peter.

 

I was making a nice roasted maple neck to go with it but alas my router betrayed me on the very last inch I was trimming.

View attachment 776148 [/QUOTE]


Don't fret...

I think most of that should all be gone when you profile the back of the neck. If you have the edge you cut off that area, you could glue in a piece of matching grain & save that neck.
I had a similar, but not as large accident like that on my Birdseye maple Hendrix neck build. A scabbed piece, & after finishing, no one could ever see it.

Scott

 

It’s not exactly a new build, but I went back to an old flame, gave her a new paint job, gold frets, and a little rewiring. And I couldn’t be happier to be sending her off soon.

 

Making progress:

 

Custom Mustang. 25.5" scale, Body from ToneBomb in Canada which is a really nicely done 2 piece Ash body and at a very good price .
Gibson scale Roasted maple tele neck from BGP) Have it with a D Allen VooDoo Blues neck pickup and a Lollar P90 Neck pickup installed in the bridge which I had to reverse the magnets in to get it in phase with the neck pickup. ..
Have planned actually to put a Mustang Antiquity II (SD) neck p/u (which I have) and a SD 59 bridge humbucker in.. Waiting on the 59 still. The finish is just Minwax water based transparent stain. so easy to do. I'm going to rub on the finish a bit to give it a little more worn in look today..
Wired with 500k mojotone vintage taper cts pots and a .0015 cap.
It really sounds good like it is ... I just had these pickups in the drawer.. Waiting for some templates for a pickguard from WD so I can send them a tracing.. required for them to cut me a pickguard. I've had them make a few for me and they have always been spot on..
I really like this one..

 

Very familiar old color

 

Well off the workbench and in the air I just finished these two windchimes. Aluminum tubes 1.25" & 1.5" OD. Still have to get my wife to paint the Butterflies like the copper one. These are fun to make here is a great website for making them http://www.leehite.org/Chimes.htm#Pre-calculated

 

Making wind chimes is fun. Made this set for the Mrs a few years ago... ...the tubes are 2” aluminum and the longest tube is 6’8”. They are tuned to a pentatonic scale with the mounting point of each tube set at a node so that it doesn’t mess with the tone. Was worried that they would be loud/annoying but they actually sound like distant church bells.

I made a few others that were about a foot shorter (wife insisted that she have the largest set made). The first set was donated to our church fundraiser and sold at auction for $750!!!

 

Well, actually the usual three steps forwards ad two backwards...

 

I tuned mine to a pentatonic scale (A & D) I'm started another one with 1.5" tube not sure how i'll tune them I have 4/10 foot tubes

 

I built this neck around 1980 (first scratch-built neck) and in my infinite wisdom made the scale length 25 3/4" just to try something different. The neck was originally on a Custom body with WRHBs. This body is from Warmoth. I had the bridge plate custom machined from stainless to accommodate the longer string gauge. Great little swing guitar.

I call it "Monocaster."

Needless to say, it plays a bit tight with .009's on it.

After watching a video comparison of string gauges ranging from .012's to .007's I found I really like the tone of thinner strings. The sound clips were amazing.

So I'm changing over to a .008 - .038 set today to see what happens.

 

I have a couple of chairs on my bench currently...a guy I assist from time to time is a chairmaker and I'm learning a bit about chair geometry from his designs with the intended goal of getting back on the set of chairs based on Nakashima's Mira chairs I started back in 2003 but stalled before I began with the seat carving. The components I'm using were from his prototypes for a new spindle back design of his so while I"m not starting from scratch, I'm having to do a lot of hand work plus make or remake a few components. I'll be putting these two chairs in the "gallery" room I recently renovated in the house.

I'm getting close to starting on the next build...a bass...I just have a few more design refinements I want to make before cutting a prototype, especially of the neck, since it's a whole different starting point than with the guitars.